• Disabling job artifacts
• Storing job artifacts
  • Using local storage
  • Using object storage
    • Object Storage Settings
      • S3 compatible connection settings
  • OpenStack compatible connection settings
  • Migrating from object storage to local storage
• Expiring artifacts
• Validation for dependencies
• Set the maximum file size of the artifacts
• Storage statistics
• Implementation details
• Troubleshooting
  • Job artifacts using too much disk space
    • List projects by total size of job artifacts stored
    • List largest artifacts in a single project
    • Delete job artifacts from jobs completed before a specific date
    • Delete job artifacts and logs from jobs completed before a specific date

Jobs artifacts administration

Artifacts is a list of files and directories which are attached to a job after it finishes. This feature is enabled by default in all GitLab installations. Keep reading if you want to know how to disable it.

Disabling job artifacts

To disable artifacts site-wide, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

   gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = false
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

   artifacts:
     enabled: false
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Storing job artifacts

GitLab Runner can upload an archive containing the job artifacts to GitLab. By default, this is done when the job succeeds, but can also be done on failure, or always, via the artifacts:when parameter.

Most artifacts are compressed by GitLab Runner before being sent to the coordinator. The exception to this is reports artifacts, which are compressed after uploading.

Using local storage

To change the location where the artifacts are stored locally, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

The artifacts are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/artifacts, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

   gitlab_rails['artifacts_path'] = "/mnt/storage/artifacts"
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

The artifacts are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/artifacts, edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

   artifacts:
     enabled: true
     path: /mnt/storage/artifacts
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using object storage

• Introduced in GitLab Premium 9.4.
• Since version 9.5, artifacts are browsable, when object storage is enabled. 9.4 lacks this feature.
• Since version 10.6, available in GitLab Core
• Since version 11.0, we support direct_upload to S3.

If you don’t want to use the local disk where GitLab is installed to store the artifacts, you can use an object storage like AWS S3 instead. This configuration relies on valid AWS credentials to be configured already. Use an object storage option like AWS S3 to store job artifacts.

Read more about using object storage with GitLab.

Object Storage Settings

For source installations the following settings are nested under artifacts: and then object_store:. On Omnibus GitLab installs they are prefixed by artifacts_object_store_.

S3 compatible connection settings

The connection settings match those provided by Fog, and are as follows:

In Omnibus installations:

The artifacts are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following lines, substituting the values you want:

   gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = true
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_enabled'] = true
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_remote_directory'] = "artifacts"
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = {
     'provider' => 'AWS',
     'region' => 'eu-central-1',
     'aws_access_key_id' => 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID',
     'aws_secret_access_key' => 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'
   }
   

   For GitLab 9.4+, if you’re using AWS IAM profiles, be sure to omit the AWS access key and secret access key/value pairs. For example:

   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = {
     'provider' => 'AWS',
     'region' => 'eu-central-1',
     'use_iam_profile' => true
   }
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

   gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate
   

In installations from source:

The artifacts are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

   artifacts:
     enabled: true
     object_store:
       enabled: true
       remote_directory: "artifacts" # The bucket name
       connection:
         provider: AWS # Only AWS supported at the moment
         aws_access_key_id: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
         aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
         region: eu-central-1
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

   sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
   

OpenStack compatible connection settings

The connection settings match those provided by Fog, and are as follows:

In Omnibus installations:

The uploads are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following lines, substituting the values you want:

   gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = true
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_enabled'] = true
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_remote_directory'] = "artifacts"
   gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = {
    'provider' => 'OpenStack',
    'openstack_username' => 'OS_USERNAME',
    'openstack_api_key' => 'OS_PASSWORD',
    'openstack_temp_url_key' => 'OS_TEMP_URL_KEY',
    'openstack_auth_url' => 'https://auth.cloud.ovh.net',
    'openstack_region' => 'GRA',
    'openstack_tenant_id' => 'OS_TENANT_ID',
   }
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

   gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate
   

In installations from source:

The uploads are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

   uploads:
     object_store:
       enabled: true
       direct_upload: false
       background_upload: true
       proxy_download: false
       remote_directory: "artifacts"
       connection:
         provider: OpenStack
         openstack_username: OS_USERNAME
         openstack_api_key: OS_PASSWORD
         openstack_temp_url_key: OS_TEMP_URL_KEY
         openstack_auth_url: 'https://auth.cloud.ovh.net'
         openstack_region: GRA
         openstack_tenant_id: OS_TENANT_ID
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

   sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
   

Migrating from object storage to local storage

In Omnibus installations:

In order to migrate back to local storage:

1. Set both direct_upload and background_upload to false in gitlab.rb, under the artifacts object storage settings.
2. Reconfigure GitLab.
3. Run gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate_to_local.
4. Disable object_storage for artifacts in gitlab.rb:
   • Set gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_enabled'] = false.
   • Comment out all other artifacts_object_store settings, including the entire artifacts_object_store_connection section, including the closing }.
5. Reconfigure GitLab.

Expiring artifacts

If artifacts:expire_in is used to set an expiry for the artifacts, they are marked for deletion right after that date passes. Otherwise, they will expire per the default artifacts expiration setting.

Artifacts are cleaned up by the expire_build_artifacts_worker cron job which Sidekiq runs every hour at 50 minutes (50 * * * *).

To change the default schedule on which the artifacts are expired, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line (or uncomment it if it already exists and is commented out), substituting your schedule in cron syntax:

   gitlab_rails['expire_build_artifacts_worker_cron'] = "50 * * * *"
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

   expire_build_artifacts_worker:
     cron: "50 * * * *"
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

If the expire directive is not set explicitly in your pipeline, artifacts will expire per the default artifacts expiration setting, which you can find in the CI/CD Admin settings.

Validation for dependencies

To disable the dependencies validation, you can enable the ci_disable_validates_dependencies feature flag from a Rails console.

In Omnibus installations:

1. Enter the Rails console:

   sudo gitlab-rails console
   

2. Enable the feature flag to disable the validation:

   Feature.enable(:ci_disable_validates_dependencies)
   

In installations from source:

1. Enter the Rails console:

   cd /home/git/gitlab
   sudo -u git -H bundle exec rails console -e production
   

2. Enable the feature flag to disable the validation:

   Feature.enable(:ci_disable_validates_dependencies)
   

Set the maximum file size of the artifacts

If artifacts are enabled, you can change the maximum file size of the artifacts through the Admin Area settings.

Storage statistics

You can see the total storage used for job artifacts on groups and projects in the administration area, as well as through the groups and projects APIs.

Implementation details

When GitLab receives an artifacts archive, an archive metadata file is also generated by GitLab Workhorse. This metadata file describes all the entries that are located in the artifacts archive itself. The metadata file is in a binary format, with additional Gzip compression.

GitLab does not extract the artifacts archive in order to save space, memory and disk I/O. It instead inspects the metadata file which contains all the relevant information. This is especially important when there is a lot of artifacts, or an archive is a very large file.

When clicking on a specific file, GitLab Workhorse extracts it from the archive and the download begins. This implementation saves space, memory and disk I/O.

Troubleshooting

Job artifacts using too much disk space

Job artifacts can fill up your disk space quicker than expected. Some possible reasons are:

• Users have configured job artifacts expiration to be longer than necessary.
• The number of jobs run, and hence artifacts generated, is higher than expected.
• Job logs are larger than expected, and have accumulated over time.

In these and other cases, you’ll need to identify the projects most responsible for disk space usage, figure out what types of artifacts are using the most space, and in some cases, manually delete job artifacts to reclaim disk space.

One possible first step is to clean up orphaned artifact files.

List projects by total size of job artifacts stored

List the top 20 projects, sorted by the total size of job artifacts stored, by running the following code in the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper
ProjectStatistics.order(build_artifacts_size: :desc).limit(20).each do |s|
  puts "#{number_to_human_size(s.build_artifacts_size)} \t #{s.project.full_path}"
end

You can change the number of projects listed by modifying .limit(20) to the number you want.

List largest artifacts in a single project

List the 50 largest job artifacts in a single project by running the following code in the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper
project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project')
Ci::JobArtifact.where(project: project).order(size: :desc).limit(50).map { |a| puts "ID: #{a.id} - #{a.file_type}: #{number_to_human_size(a.size)}" }

You can change the number of job artifacts listed by modifying .limit(50) to the number you want.

Delete job artifacts from jobs completed before a specific date

If you need to manually remove job artifacts associated with multiple jobs while retaining their job logs, this can be done from the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

1. Select jobs to be deleted:

   To select all jobs with artifacts for a single project:

   project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project')
   builds_with_artifacts =  project.builds.with_downloadable_artifacts
   

   To select all jobs with artifacts across the entire GitLab instance:

   builds_with_artifacts = Ci::Build.with_downloadable_artifacts
   

2. Delete job artifacts older than a specific date:

   NOTE: This step will also erase artifacts that users have chosen to “keep”.

   builds_to_clear = builds_with_artifacts.where("finished_at < ?", 1.week.ago)
   builds_to_clear.find_each do |build|
     build.artifacts_expire_at = Time.now
     build.erase_erasable_artifacts!
   end
   

   1.week.ago is a Rails ActiveSupport::Duration method which calculates a new date or time in the past. Other valid examples are:

   • 7.days.ago
   • 3.months.ago
   • 1.year.ago

Delete job artifacts and logs from jobs completed before a specific date

If you need to manually remove all job artifacts associated with multiple jobs, including job logs, this can be done from the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

1. Select jobs to be deleted:

   To select jobs with artifacts for a single project:

   project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project')
   builds_with_artifacts =  project.builds.with_existing_job_artifacts(Ci::JobArtifact.trace)
   

   To select jobs with artifacts across the entire GitLab instance:

   builds_with_artifacts = Ci::Build.with_existing_job_artifacts(Ci::JobArtifact.trace)
   

2. Select the user which will be mentioned in the web UI as erasing the job:

   admin_user = User.find_by(username: 'username')
   

3. Erase job artifacts and logs older than a specific date:

   builds_to_clear = builds_with_artifacts.where("finished_at < ?", 1.week.ago)
   builds_to_clear.find_each do |build|
     print "Ci::Build ID #{build.id}... "
   
     if build.erasable?
       build.erase(erased_by: admin_user)
       puts "Erased"
     else
       puts "Skipped (Nothing to erase or not erasable)"
     end
   end
   

   1.week.ago is a Rails ActiveSupport::Duration method which calculates a new date or time in the past. Other valid examples are:

   • 7.days.ago
   • 3.months.ago
   • 1.year.ago